Captain Adams and WACs of the 6888th Central Postal Batallion via NPSEarly WAAC Adams before they dropped the “auxiliary” and upped the benefits via NPSThe 6888th and civilian employees sorting mail in Paris, 1946 via National Archives
Shownotes under construction, please come back later for all the good bits!
Time Travel with The History Chicks
Books!
by Brenda Mooreby Sandra BolzeniusBy Ronald Rosbottom
When Fort Gregg-Adams was being named, Lt Col. Adams’ son gave an interview, it gives more detail about his father: DVIDS NEWS.
Information and photos about the Fort Leavenworth statue unveiling with five of the original members of the 6888th (including Cpl Lena Derricott Bell King- a lead character in the movie.)
Lt. Colonel Adams needs a postage stamp, it’s so obvious and shocks us that it hasn’t been done yet. Get involved here at the Citizens’ Stamp Advisory Committee!
Moving Picturesand Audio
If you haven’t listened to our coverage of the life of Dr. Mary McLeod Bethune, it’s a two-parter, here’s the shownotes to the first one: Dr. Bethune, Pt One (episode, 223.)
Not a documentary, but a very well-done historical fiction, the 2024, Netflix movie The Six Triple Eight starring Kerry Washington and produced by Tyler Perry and based on this article by Kevin Hemel (and if you want to read the transcript, visit Scraps from the Loft.)
Katharine, 1976 by Trikosko, Marion S, Library of Congress
Katharine Meyer Graham was born on June 16, 1917, in New York City, the fourth child of Eugene Meyer and Agnes Ernst Meyer. She had a very upper-class upbringing thanks to her incredibly successful investor father who had a second career in politics and a third in newspaper publishing after he purchased the then-failing Washington Post. Katharine’s mother, Agnes, was a powerhouse art patron and philanthropist (with a spicy side of political activism) while maybe not the fuzziest of maternal figures, she was a product of her times and class.
Gertrude, circa 1922 in her WSA sweater via Library of Congress
They said it couldn’t be done; that the deck, and the odds, were stacked against her, but Trudy Ederle listened only to her heart during her record-breaking swim across the English Channel. She was the first woman to accomplish this feat, and her record would hold for another 24 years, but there was a lot more to her life than one phenomenal swim.
Emily dressed for court, circa 1894 by Charles-Émile-Auguste Carolus-Duran –she was more than “just” the bridge
Emily Roebling stepped in to facilitate the construction of the Brooklyn Bridge after her husband, its chief engineer, fell victim to a mysterious illness. Though her contributions were kept shadowed at the time, later generations have realized how critical she was to the project’s completion (and she did so much more afterward!)
When we left Althea in part one, she was 24 and after years of training, practice, competition, and a village of supporters working with her and behind the scenes, she was finally invited to the American Lawn Tennis Association Championship at Forest Hills Tennis Stadium in New York in 1950! Getting to this national tournament wasn’t easy, but few things in Althea’s life are.
It wasn’t easy to get to Forest Hills, or through college, or onto a short-lived career as a college physical education teacher…it wasn’t even easy to get her application through to become a WAC, a member of the military Women’s Army Corps, a position that never fully panned out for Althea. She was floundering in her life and ready to give up tennis when she was tapped by the US State Department for a Goodwill Tour to Asia, along with three other tennis players.
This travel led Althea to travel on her own throughout Europe to play in tournaments, improve her game, and play with the best competition in the world! Soon she became that competition for others, winning her first major tournament in France then on to the oldest in the world: Wimbledon. She cracked through racial barriers, gender barriers, and economic barriers to win scores of tournaments including 11 “Grand Slam” tournaments: five singles titles, five doubles titles, and one mixed doubles title.
Althea’s first Wimbledon singles victory, Queen Elizabeth’s first Wimbledon 1957With Darlene Hard, singles runner-up Wimbledon 1957After Wimbledon in 1957, the first person of color to win the oldest tennis tournament in the world, NYC welcomed back their own daughter with a ticker tape parade.
Althea made two appearances on the Ed Sullivan show, this is after her historic Wimbledon win
But competitive tennis in the 1950s was for amateurs only, and Althea couldn’t support herself playing the game she loved by competition, so she retired in 1958 and crafted an interesting life recording an album, appearing twice on the Ed Sullivan Show, writing an autobiography, acting, and modeling for ads until she landed a five-year run touring with the Harlem Globetrotters to play exhibition games. When that ended, she began to hit a different type of ball when she toured with the Ladies Pro Golfer Association (LPGA.)
Her second Ed Sullivan appearance and she sings!
Althea gave tennis clinics and talks about being a Black, female athlete for the rest of her life.
The remainder of her life was full of struggles and successes…just like the years that came before. Althea Gibson died on September 28, 2003, she was 76 years old.
By Sally Jacobsby Ashley BrownBy Frances Clayton Gray and Yanick Rice LambAbout Althea and Angela Buxton by Bruce SchoenfeldFirst autobiographySecond autobiography
Kid books we liked:
By Sue Stauffacher and Greg CouchBy Lesa Cline-Ransome
Web!
We have a Pinterest board for every subject, it’s a glorious place to dive into some rabbit Holes! Here is Althea’s!
Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture online exhibit about Althea, and she’s represented at the International Tennis Hall of Fame in Newport, Rhode Island (to access the museum’s Metaverse, go to the VISIT page and scroll down.)
Resilient Grace is an online retailer with a mission of telling the stories of historic, African American women (Susan has a few of her shirts including the Shirley Chisholm one that she wears when she votes!)
This is the kind of sports jersey we can get behind!
Our 2024 Field Trips to Austria and Paris are both sold out, and there are just a few spaces for our New York trip in September. There, we will also have a Locals’ Meet-up Dinner Cruise that’s open for reservations now. If you’re interested in any of these, please see Like Minds Travel for information and to sign up!
Break Music: Slow Cookin’ by Joe Smith and the Spicy Pickles; End Song: Play the Game by Lilly Wolf used by permission from iLicense Music.
